Come Back to Me
by FrogOfThunder
Summary: With the Normandy crashed and crippled on an unknown world, and with Shepard almost certainly dead, Tali wonders how she can go on without him. Two-shot.
1. Stranded

This was one of the worst days of Tali'Zorah's life, right up there with the death of her mother. She was sitting in a crippled _Normandy_ on an unknown world. Sitting in Shepard's cabin ( _their_ cabin, she had to remind herself). Sitting on his bed ( _their_ bed). Without him. Without knowing if he was alive. Knowing that the rest of the crew thought he was dead, even if they were careful only to say it when they thought she couldn't hear. Having to accept that they might be right, that this time he wasn't coming back. That this time, she was alone for good.

Tali didn't know what to do with helplessness; she was an engineer, used to problems she could pick up, turn over in her hands, and repair with an omni-tool and a soldering iron. But the heart and the soul weren't so easily fixed, and so Tali could do nothing but sit, alone with her pain. Working in engineering had helped; it had been easy to ignore the dull ache in her bones and the knots in her chest when she was repairing fuel injectors and re-soldering circuit boards. But she could only hide in the drive core for so long, and six consecutive shifts had seen Adams stealing her omni-tool and Doctor Chakwas threatening to sedate her unless she went and got some damned sleep already.

She had _tried_ to sleep, really; she'd even wrapped herself in Shepard's sweater (and its comforting aroma of sweat and coffee and that burnt-eezo smell that came off used heatsinks), and rolled onto Shepard's side of the bed (gone disappointingly cold from days of disuse). But every time she closed her eyes, she saw his face, battered and broken and still, or she saw the haunted look in Ash's face as she'd explained ordering Joker to flee.

So instead she was sitting in bed, staring at the picture Glyph had taken at Shepard's big party. It was the only picture she had of him, believe it or not, and she could barely even see his face in it. Her finger brushed the glass, gently tracing the line of his jaw, and she felt a white-hot stab of hatred for the photographic version of herself, at whom Shepard was no doubt smiling that little smile he reserved for her alone. If not for her doppelganger, Shepard would have been looking at the camera, at _her_ ; she'd have been able to see his kind eyes and warm smile and maybe, just maybe, she wouldn't have felt so alone.

But no, he was looking at the other Tali; a Tali who, to her shame, couldn't even remember the damned picture being taken. And Tali, the real Tali, had nothing.

Well, that wasn't entirely true. For all the things she had lost, she still had the memory of him. One such memory surfaced; it had been after a very bad day and she had asked him: _"How do you keep going?"_ It hadn't been the first time she'd asked, but usually he brushed the question off with a joke; but that day, he'd been quiet for a long time.

 _"I think about the people I've lost,"_ he'd said finally, so quiet she'd strained to hear him, _"The people I've failed. The ones who deserved better. And then I think about the people who are left, the people I care about, and I promise to give_ them _better."_

It hadn't made sense to Tali at the time. It hadn't made sense after Alchera, either. But it had made sense on Freedom's Progress, when she'd seen her teammates, bodies stretched at grotesque angles, and when she'd seen Veetor, terrified and vulnerable. It had made sense on Haestrom. It made sense now.

She thought of her friends, all of whom were suffering at least as much as she was. She thought of Joker, who had to share a ship with a constant reminder of his lost love; of Ash and Garrus, and their families shattered by war; of Liara, who had once loved Shepard too. They deserved better.

She set the picture back in its place on the bedside table, and curled up in Shepard's place on the bed. For her friends, for the ones who were left, she _would_ sleep. And then she would talk to Joker.

And if the ancestors smiled, if Shepard was still alive, she would make sure they never ran out of pictures.

* * *

So there's chapter one. Chapter two will be up next week. If you want an author's note, check my profile.


	2. Trapped

One of the training courses at N-school was officially designated RTI: resistance to interrogation. Before they took the course, cadets called it "torture school." After, they didn't talk about it at all. Shepard's least favourite part had been sensory deprivation: old standbys and new technologies used in concert to rob him of his connection to the outside world. It had taken him to memories he'd rather forget, made him feel like a scared boy hiding in the cold, dark woods. It made him feel helpless.

Commander Shepard didn't _do_ helplessness. He disagreed with it. Violently.

But here he was: helpless. As bad as RTI's sensory deprivation had been, this was worse. There were no words to describe how much worse. Even 22nd-century technology could only do so much; it could dull his senses, but it couldn't remove them completely. But whatever was affecting him now, _it_ could. It _had_. His eyes saw Nothing, his ears heard Nothing, his fingers felt Nothing. He couldn't tell if he was standing or sitting, warm or cold; all the pains he'd had after waking up on the Citadel, from the dull aches in his ankles to the burning needling in his lungs when he tried to breathe, were gone; he couldn't even tell if he _was_ breathing.

There was just...Nothing.

He wasn't even sure how he'd gotten there. His last memories were of the Illusive Man, of Anderson, of Hackett's voice over the comm, of collapsing in front of the central console; after that, Nothing. Had the Crucible fired? Had the Reapers attacked it? The Fleet was supposed to stop that from happening; had they been destroyed already?

So many questions, but one rose above the others: What happened to Tali?

He could picture her, his last memory of her flitting in front of his mind's eye. He saw one, silver, unfocused eye peering out from a crack in her faceplate. He saw her straining out of Garrus' grip, her arm reaching for him, blood leaking from countless tiny tears in the suit fabric. He saw the shrapnel she hadn't even noticed, jutting obscenely from her midsection, dripping crimson. He saw the vocal indicator light on her mask flicker, but he didn't hear her voice calling to him, pleading with him, begging him. All he heard was the blood pounding in his ears, and the deafening roar of Reapers.

He remembered holding onto that image as he'd turned from her, away from the departing _Normandy_ , as he'd resumed his run towards the Conduit. He'd held onto it as Harbinger's beam sent him flying, as he'd stood on unsteady legs and lifted his pistol (had it always been so _heavy_ ) and fended off still more Reaper forces. It had been the last thing he'd seen before throwing himself into the Conduit's beam, and the first thing after he'd regained consciousness on the Citadel.

He remembered how that image had made him feel. He remembered the fear, and the pain. But most of all, he remembered the rage. He remembered all of his scattered thoughts crystallizing around a singular purpose: to bring ruin down on Harbinger.

This was the great secret of Commander Shepard, the one he worked so hard to keep hidden from a galaxy that needed a Hero: Shepard didn't fight to protect the innocent, or defend lofty ideals; hell, Shepard didn't even fight to protect the woman he loved. Shepard fought for vengeance. He fought to kill.

It was why he'd enlisted in the first place, all those years ago: to kill batarians. Batarians had taken everything from him, taken his home and his family and everything he'd ever known or loved. Mindoir had sparked a fire within him, in a deep and secret place. And at Torfan, he'd let the fire burn. Every time he failed, wasn't fast enough or strong enough or smart enough, he fuelled it. And every time he needed to be better than the best, to push farther than anyone could, it fuelled him.

Shepard wasn't proud of what he was, even less so once people started hailing him as a hero. Once people started falling in love with the mask he put up for the world. He'd told Tali once that he fought to honour the memory of the ones who had fallen; he hadn't been able to bear telling her the truth, to shatter her image of him as the noble hero, and show her the murderer behind the mask. He supposed that made him selfish.

But he'd learned long ago that he couldn't change what he was; he couldn't put the fire out, but he could focus it and direct it. If he couldn't be Good, he could at least be Useful. And if he was going to be Useful, he still had enemies to fight, still had a galaxy and a planet and a lover to avenge.

He reached deep inside himself, reaching for that fire, but it was gone; used up at Cronos Station and on Earth and the Citadel. It had taken every last ember of his hate to get here, and he had nothing left to give. Nothing left to keep him going. Nothing to keep him alive.

Except...there was something. Farther down even than the familiar fire, there was something new. Something purple. A promise he'd made, to a woman who deserved better. He held onto that now, the very last part of himself. Maybe, just once, he could be the hero she thought he was. Maybe he could survive on love alone. Maybe that would be enough.

* * *

There's chapter two, and this story, done. See my profile/blog for more extensive author's notes


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